


Philanthropy

by Souhashi



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Cyberpunk, Cyborgs, Fanart, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-01 17:51:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19182784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Souhashi/pseuds/Souhashi
Summary: John Reese has been reborn, whether he likes it or not.





	Philanthropy

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't been writing or doing anything creative lately because uni finals were insane so this is my means of getting back on the saddle. This was the first painting I did after the end of the exams and although I posted it on Tumblr as is, I was inspired to write something to go with it.

 

“Do you know what a philanthropist is, Reese?” Kara asks in his ear. She’s become something of the voice or reason or a moral compass if compasses where used to point to the next target instead of the right direction.

She could take him for a memory wipe. She finds the pep talks more productive.

“No…” he says, as he trains his rifle on the target once more. He does know what it used to mean, now he’s not so sure. He wants to hear Kara’s version. Or he doesn’t want to mouth off too much, Kara likes him violent and mindless, seen, not heard.

Confetti is streaming through the windows of his hideout, green and red flakes of cheap paper. The demonstration is quite far away but the wind is howling, snapping at the walls and the gravel of the road, sharing the anger of the mob outside. Reese’s shot is going to be challenging.

“A philanthropist loves humanity and does what’s best for them…even if they don’t like it at first.”

Reese catches on where this is going almost immediately. The kid in his sights is no more than 25, the messy long hair and the worn clothes suggesting a student. He’s protesting Reese, or what he has become, and the others like him.

Reese didn’t ask for this.

“Sometimes the masses are led astray…rebellion sounds like fun and everyone thinks they got the stomach for it” Kara continues, her tone soft. To the untrained ear it sounds like concern, but Reese sees through the bullshit and finds the condescension in the inflections.

Reese raises a hand, pointing two fingers at his target. The sights are barely an improvement, but he can see him just fine with his new eyes, even from afar. Once, in another life, he was worried about losing his vision, either with age or by the nature of his work. Now he wishes he were blind.

He can still feel his arm, his own arm under all the metal and pistons and gears and wires. He still remembers his first throw, the pull of the muscles and tendons.  

“Consider yourself a philanthropist John…you are preventing a lot of bloodshed” Kara says in his ear.

Reese is aware of the butterfly effect. A bullet here, a slit throat there, you kill one man today and a million are spared in ten years. In his experience that’s a load of bullshit. Things are a lot more complicated to be changed with one dead man.

He lifts his rifle and trains it on his target. The whirring of his arm is ambient noise only he can hear, like a twisted form of tinnitus. He won’t miss. He cannot miss.

His masters are myopic, arrogant, pompous. They will get their comeuppance, in time, from a turn of events beyond their understanding. Today he’s playing along with their orders and Kara’s meaningless speeches and their confidence that they are the gamemasters and everyone else is the pawns. Tomorrow he rises.

He takes the shot.


End file.
